Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Australia sends boatpeople to Papua New Guinea

SYDNEY — Australia Wednesday said it had begun sending boatpeople to
Papua New Guinea as it admitted that its offshore refugee processing
system was straining to cope with the number of recent arrivals.
Canberra
announced in August that refugees arriving by boat would be sent to two
Pacific islands and almost 400 are now held on the tiny nation of
Nauru, despite Amnesty International's criticism of conditions there as
"completely unacceptable".
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said
the first transfer of asylum-seekers to PNG went ahead Tuesday, with
four children and 15 adults belonging to seven families from Sri Lanka
and Iran sent to Manus Island.
But he acknowledged that, given the
thousands of boatpeople who have arrived since the government announced
its new policy, it would not be possible to transfer them all to Nauru
or Manus Island in the immediate future.
"So some people... will
be processed in Australia and processed in the community, but will
remain on bridging visas, even after they are regarded, through the
process, as refugees," he told reporters in Sydney.
"They will
still be subject to potential future transfer to Nauru or Papua New
Guinea at a date when increased capacity becomes available."
The
centre-left Labor government has struggled to deal with an influx of
asylum-seekers arriving by sea, with more than 7,000 boatpeople landing
since the tough new policy was announced.
A record of more than than 15,500 have arrived in 2012.
Bowen
said transfers to Nauru and Manus Island, which will ultimately have a
combined capacity of about 2,100, would continue but the government
would begin releasing some asylum-seekers into the Australian community
on bridging visas.
Consistent with the government's aim of giving
"no advantage" to people who bypass regular immigration channels and
come to Australia by boat, while on these visas they will have no work
rights and only limited financial help.
The government is also
repatriating asylum-seekers deemed not to be refugees, sending home 100
Sri Lankan men on Wednesday, bringing to 426 the number involuntarily
returned to Colombo in the past three months.
"Our humanitarian
programme is for people who are at risk of persecution, not for people
seeking to undertake economic migration," Bowen said.
Canberra will also reopen an immigration centre in Tasmania and expanded capacity in Melbourne to deal with the influx.
Refugee
advocates have criticised the Pacific policy, under which Bowen said
refugees could spend as long as five years in the remote camps.
Canberra
has defended its decision to process boatpeople offshore as an attempt
to stop them risking their lives on the journey to Australia, during
which scores have died, and insists all are treated humanely.
Amnesty's
Graham Thom, who has just visited Nauru, said the conditions the
refugees were living in had prompted hunger strikes, suicide attempts
and self-harm on the island.
"In the front of their minds is the
fact that they're not being processed, the uncertainty that's facing
them is clearly having an impact on their mental health," he said,
according to an ABC report.
The Australian Human Rights Commission
has also raised concerns about the involuntary removal of
asylum-seekers and transfers offshore.
"States cannot avoid their
international law obligations by transferring asylum seekers to a third
country," president Gillian Triggs said.

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